Backyard Camp-out

Last night we had a back yard camp-out. Both Daddy and myself are on vacation and it was a nice night out. Alex was so excited.

 

While it was still light out we made some toilet paper/ paper towel roll owls. I was inspired to make these from Frugal Family Fun's blog post. I simple collected the paper tubes, folded the top to create the owl's ear tufts. Instead of painting them we used colored tissue paper and decoupaged them. After we added some googly eyes, beaks and wings. Daddy's owl is the really tall one with the crazy "feathers," he said his was molting. LOL Even Grammy joined in on the craft. Her's is the cute purple and blue one on the right.

Afterward we built a fire and made S'mores. Alex wanted to eat each part individually.

It was dark out then, so we had some glow stick fun. We made a awesome glow stick lantern that I saw on Pinterest original post by Little Blue Boo. I simply cut open a couple of leftover glow sticks and dumped the contents of them into a jar. Instant lantern.

Alex also had a glow stick wand that made some interesting photos. When I shot them on a low shutter speed.

After a fun night it was time for bed, and we all crawled into the tent and went to sleep to the sound of crickets chirping and a cool summer breeze blowing through the trees.

Ice Cube Painting

Its about 100 degrees today with high humidity. Too hot :P  I thought it would be a perfect day to do some ice cube painting. I originally saw this on Pinterest, the original post was from here. I froze a few drops of food coloring in ice cube trays overnight. The original post uses watercolors, which is probably a better idea, because our hands are dyed multiple colors now. Anyway it was fun and a great activity for a hot day.

The colors mixed together created a really interesting and pretty tie dye look. Now I am trying to come up with a idea to make with the pretty painted paper :)

Sandy Sensory Bins

I've been slacking on making sensory bins this summer, but this afternoon I made two, A Dino Box and a Beach box. They are both made using sand as a base because Daddy ordered too much sand for the new horseshoe pits and Alex's new sandbox. Hmmm? What other sand activities can I do. : /

After our much anticipated trip to Prehistoric World in Ontario Canada, Alex has been very interested in playing with his dinosaurs. I decided to make him a playscape/sensory box for his dinosaurs.

In this box is sand, a shallow dish with water, a couple of twigs with leaves still on them, a small log, a package of plastic dinosaurs and rocks.

The second box I made I decided to make some DIY Moon Sand. I found the recipe I loosely followed on Pinterest, the original post was here.

My Moon Sand Recipe

6 cups of sand

3 cups of corn starch

1 and a half cups of water (more or less for desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and play.

The homemade moon sand is very close to the store bought moons sands consistency and a lot cheaper. I think it would be identical if I had finer sand. When the sand seems to dry out, you can add a little bit more water and it should be restored.

Once I made the Moon Sand, I added some shells we collected from the local beaches, small blue sea glass, some red gems,  a small shovel, a couple small sand molds and a sea turtle and that completed our Beach Sensory Bin.

Dino Eggs

We are hopefully headed towards 1000 Islands tomorrow. Alex has a fever though. Ugh. He has been so excited to see Prehistoric World just over the border in Canada. Every day he asked if we are going to see the dinos. So a couple weeks ago I made him some dinosaur eggs. We just cracked them open today. I have seen it on numerous blogs, but this is the recipe I followed. I'm not sure where it came from.

DINO EGGS
You Will Need:
21/2 cups Flour
21/2 cups Used Coffee Grounds
11/2 cups Salt
1 cup Sand
Up to 1 cup Water
** plastic dinosaurs
How To Make It:
Mix flour, coffee grounds, salt & sand.
Gradually stir in water until mixture holds together.
Use as little water as possible to speed drying.
Allow up to a week to air dry.
** Add the plastic dinosaurs as you are forming the rock, so that
when you crack it open, out pops a baby dino

Add water till it is like a play dough consistency

I think I added too much coffee they were very brown colored.

We let ours dry for little over 2 weeks, since it has been so humid

They were hard to open. Alex needed help.

Bridal Shower Gifts

A very close friend of mine is getting married and today was her bridal shower. This couple has been together for many years and own their house together, so they didn't really need much for setting up their house. They didn't register anywhere either. It was recommended that we get them home improvement store gift cards. In my opinion that is useful but pretty boring, I wanted her to have something fun to unwrap. So in addition to a practical Home Depot gift card I made her a couple of little gifts.

The wedding day survival kit. I had seen some versions of this on Pinterest . I thought it was a great idea so I made my own. I purchased a pink case at Michaels for a couple dollars. Then a purchase a bunch of small travel items that I thought would be useful on a wedding day, deodorant, tissues, bobby pins, safety pins, makeup remover pads, nail file, breathe mints, band aids, moisturizer, lint pads, chap stick, clear nail polish, ibuprofen, chocolates, nip of Vodka and small bottle of red wine.  ;)

Lately I have seen a lot of alphabet photography, that spell out people's names or special words. I decided to give it a shot and went on the photographic hunt for the letter L-O-V-E. Here is what I came up with. The L lighthouse is a local landmark. The V lobster claw is because lobster fishing industry is a huge part of our community. The couple is also into gardening and nature so that was the inspiration for the O and E. I framed and matted them and added the couples names and their wedding date. It was a huge hit at the shower, I got many compliments on it.

Rain Gutter Bookshelves

We have been slowly turning Alex's room from a nursery into a big boy's room. He loves Toy Story so we have been going with that theme. We replaced his baby turtle border with a Toy Story border. I am currently painting a Toy Story mural on one wall, I'll post more on that project later.

Anyway, our latest project was some vinyl rain gutter bookshelves. They were really inexpensive (about $15) and look great. They hold a fair amount of books, these two shelves are 3 and half feet long and hold about 15 books each. It all depends on the thickness of the books too. I love that Alex can see the covers of all his books and tell us which one he's like to read. I found a great tutorial here on how to install them.

Salt Painting Fireworks

Alex is getting pretty excited to celebrate Independence Day this year. He is excited to see fireworks and the parade. So today I thought we would try a fun little activity that I had seen on I Can Teach My Child blog. We made some salt absorbing firework paintings. Alex really enjoyed it. It was pretty simple. I drew some firework shapes on a piece of black construction paper with glue. Alex sprinkled the wet glue with salt until it's completely covered, then we tapped off any excess.

Then he used a eye dropper to drip red and blue water (food coloring and water) on the salt. As the salt absorbs the liquid, the water will move along the glue lines and it created our "Fourth of July fireworks".

It was a pretty interesting and fun effect. If you try this be sure to let your child know that the creation won't last. The salt comes off very easily once it is dry.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Fourth of July holiday weekend!